Cyanotypes:

I inverted my original photos on photoshop and adjusted the contrast and highlights using curves, I then printed these images out onto acetate to turn them into cyanotypes.

When looking at the final piece I can see that there is a strange ribbed effect that seems to take over and obscure the whole image. I believe that this is because I had laid the sheets of calico on a grooved surface while painting the chemical on, and the mixture seems to have seeped into those areas creating these stripes across the image. Both of these cyanotypes were first practices using my own images and using calico for the material and I believe that the final product reflects this, they seem amateur and messy. In both of these images I can see a small amount of contrast between the light and dark areas and streaks of light that highlight certain areas such as the leaves, however, I don't think that there is enough contrast within these images. They feel washed out and the colours are muted, I wanted the smaller and finer details to stand out be be far more noticeable than they and I believe that I can achieve this by going back and adjusting the highlights and contrast on photoshop. I think that age of the mixture made a difference in the outcome of my cyanotypes, the mixture that I made had been sitting in its container for about 3 weeks and I believe that this had reduced its quality. When painting the calico the chemical was a dark green when it should have been a lighter yellow and when washing out my cyanotypes I noticed that the areas that should have been white were still tinted with the blue chemical, causing my images to be a mass of blue hues instead a stark blue and white contrast. Overall, I believe that although these images seem amateur, this experiment has been something that I have learnt from and will continue to improve my technique while taking this process forwards.